


never die for long

by smithens



Series: si l'on n'a pas de soleil, il faut en faire un [3]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Letters, Old Friends, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28345962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: Thomas has a letter; Sybil has ideas.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow & Sybil Crawley
Series: si l'on n'a pas de soleil, il faut en faire un [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051889
Comments: 9
Kudos: 71





	never die for long

**Author's Note:**

> i did not notice until very late in the game that there are some fairly significant similarities here to at least one work by DarthNickels. <3 shoutout in that direction for very excellent fanwork, and for handwaving when i mentioned i may have accidentally committed some plagiarism. imitation is the sincerest form of flattery <3 <3 <3
> 
>  **content notes:** implied/referenced homophobia, implied/referenced mistreatment of women and children

**Spring 1922  
Camberwell, London**

"...for us, for us but it's rubbish, for me, for me—ugh, I _do_ wish she'd stop writing, she never has anything kind to say—for me, for me…"

"You're awfully popular," calls Thomas from the sitting room, "or was the postman mistaken again?"

"You're right, they're all addressed to _Lady Sybil Barrow_ – I do keep telling everybody–"

"The day you get any of them to stop that is the day two Sundays come together," he interrupts, suddenly right behind her; she hadn't even heard his _footsteps_. Sybil startles; so, unfortunately, does her tea saucer. "Been telling _you_ that for years, but you never believe me, do you?"

Thankfully Thomas manages to catch the cup before it lands on the floor and shatters, because the _clink_ of the tipover alone has already worsened her sore head. He sets it back upon the table, well out of her reach, then grabs a tea-towel (they've got them all over the place now, and even with that they still find themselves without when they need one) and starts sopping up the spill—very ineffectually, given he's trying to do it left-handed and at an awkward angle.

"Oh, stop, stop," says Sybil, yanking it from him as she stands, "I've got it, if you'd just…"

He picks up the letters, sidesteps to the other side of the table, and puts them in a stack beside the teacup.

It takes two additional towels to make any difference; once finished, she bundles all three up together and drops them in a damp heap at the corner of the table. The wood is still damp. Thomas raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

If he expects her to walk all the way to the linen basket he has another think coming.

"Looks like they're all dry," he says after a moment, pushing the stack of envelopes back toward her.

She'd almost prefer it if they were waterlogged, really. If they're ever away again (even if it's only to Grantham House for a handful of weeks) they'll absolutely have to do something about the post. It just piles up—though, much of that _probably_ could have been prevented if either of them had bothered to go through them in the last fortnight they've been back in their own home.

Still, they've had more pressing things on their minds. Her parents positively spoiled her.

"Good," she says anyway, and with a sigh she sits back down, feeling more like she's just run a footrace than mopped up half a cup of tea. "...is she?"

Thomas nods. "For now," he says. He looks down at her, now curled up in his arms instead of held up at his shoulder, her head resting at the inside of his elbow, her face turned toward his chest. Sometimes Sybil thinks he's better at _holding_ her than she is. "Sleepy, though... Expect she'll be hungry soon."

"You could say that at any time of day and it would be true," Sybil huffs.

"Well, it's been a couple of hours…"

Nobody had warned her about breastfeeding. How often she'd have to do it, how tender and sore she'd feel, how _frustrating_ it could be, when she doesn't latch right on the first try, or when she fusses, or won't switch sides—there are so many possible problems and she never knows which one it is, let alone how to solve it. It takes guessing. And Thomas can't help with _that._

Of course, nobody who brought her up had anything to do with this part of mothering... She doesn't even remember the name of her first nursemaid, if she ever knew it at all.

Yet another thing she ought to bring up with Cousin Isobel before too long. The baby's growing, so it's getting more and more frequent.

"I see why they wanted to hire a nanny," she mutters.

"Most people don't have nannies," Thomas points out. "We turn out all right—don't we, Imogen?"

Sybil returns to sorting through letters, to the tune of "yes, we do, yes, we do..."

They end up in four piles: _for us, for me, for me but I'll put it off for as long as possible,_ and _for him_. Most of them appear to be good wishes about the baby, with varying sincerity, judging by the return addresses alone. It strikes her as impolite at best to leave off the name of the father, but remarking upon this would get her only an _I told you so_ , so she doesn't. She'd known that this would happen, deep down; she'd known from the very beginning, but even after three years—three and a half, this month—it surprises her.

Like a bucket of cold water over the head, the discovery that most of her friendships were conditional was a sudden and unwelcome shock. Unlike a bucket of cold water over the head, the pain and frustration are unending, and it still bothers her.

It shouldn't, really. She's never been one to toe the line. Anyone who mistakenly thought it out of character or beneath her probably never knew her very well at all.

But it's frustrating, to receive letters of congratulations, and Christmas cards, and little too-polite missives whenever something interesting happens but knowing she'd never be invited round to afternoon tea. Girls at whose balls she'd danced and whom she'd known since childhood. Men for whom she'd prayed, to whom she'd written, during the war.

And that is to say nothing of the people who stopped writing completely.

How anyone could go back to the way things were is something that she can't understand with her heart, but in her mind she knows better.

To some people the rules are comforting.

For her they've always felt like jail.

"There is one just for you, if you'd like to look at it now," she tells Thomas.

"Who from?"

She flips the envelope over. The flap is blank.

"It doesn't say," she tells him, "though, the postmark says _London._ "

"Well, you can open it, if you like," he says. "Unless you want to take this one back."

"No, thank you."

He smirks.

She has no idea where they've left the letter opener.

All of the things they cleared away—sharp ones, or things with cords or tassels or anything like that—have been impossible to find whenever they've needed them. She gets the envelope open by shoving her finger through the unsealed portion of the flap and pulling.

It tears, though the folded up paper inside is left intact. As she pulls it out she recalls the trial it always was to get anything out of Pharaoh's mouth—he used to like hair ribbons, and there was that time where he'd got to Edith's just-discarded riding boots in the main hall before Anna could, and then there was mud _everywhere_...

A footman had done it, eventually.

If she remembers right, it may even have been Thomas.

The boots were unsalvageable; this letter isn't.

When she looks up, Thomas has turned toward the window, but his neck is long and his head is bent; he's looking down, not out. Imogen likes when it rains, and she can hold her head up, now, too.

Sybil unfolds the letter, using the backs of her fingers to straighten the paper out from its sharp creasing.

" _Dear Thomas,_ " she reads, and until the next line, she imagines it must be somebody very familiar: " _I must apologise for writing out of the blue. I know it has been many years since we last spoke."_

"That's no help; could be anybody."

"Oh, I'm sure there's a signature–"

"Eh, keep it a surprise." And then, more softly, higher, with a little shrug of his shoulders: "let's hope it's a good one, hm?"

She smiles.

" _Please accept my warm regards and congratulations upon the birth of your daughter and your marriage..._ "

"Well, whoever it is reads the papers, so that narrows it a bit."

And _many_ must mean more than four… so, it wouldn't be somebody from the war, she imagines, and besides that the penmanship seems to be a woman's.

_"...I offer also my belated condolences. Your sister was a wonderful woman. I was proud to call her my friend, and she will be and I am sure has been dearly missed."_

(Which is a very funny thing to say to someone who hadn't been invited to the funeral.)

_"Your father was kind enough to provide me with your address–"_

"She's sucking on her fingers again," Thomas interrupts.

_Ugh._

He waits patiently as she unbuttons her blouse.

By now they are skilled at this pass, but he hands her over with unexpected clumsiness, almost roughly—only to lean down and kiss the crown of her head the moment she's stable in Sybil's arms.

He hates apologising (and really, who _enjoys_ it?), but he'll do little things like that, instead.

Thomas strokes his thumb across her brow before stepping back, and Sybil sits back down. Before she can ask he's already gone to fetch a pillow from the sitting room.

It does get easier every time, but support is nice. And she's _clearly_ hungry; Thomas was right, before. He's a good guesser when it comes to her, even if not always with grown up people.

Sometimes Sybil wonders if other mothers and fathers behave at all the same way as they do… she has very little personal experience to speak of, and she supposes even if she did she wouldn't remember it very well. They don't have many friends who are parents, because the people they're closest to are like them. Though, Thomas doesn't have _any_ friends who are parents, even if he does work alongside other men with children… as far as she can tell, he seems to be an exception among them, being so involved, liking to be.

But then, he's exceptional in most things.

He doesn't like to talk about his own childhood, and besides, they were both the youngest, so they weren't expected to be involved with any infant care—not that Sybil would have been, herself. Nor Thomas, necessarily. Since he was a boy.

When he returns in short time he sets the pillow on her lap for her, then waits for her to adjust with Imogen before passing through to the scullery in such a hurry as though there's a fire there to be extinguished. "D'you want more tea?"

"Yes, please."

The letter remains unfolded in front of her on the table. Obviously, he does not want to hear the rest of it.

She hears the rush of water from the tap and calls, "shall I continue?"

"Why not!"

Scratch that, he _really_ does not want to hear the rest of it.

"Well, I don't want to shout it to you."

"Just get it over with, would you!"

If she doesn't read it aloud, she'd not be shocked to find its ashes later...

"It says, _I humble myself now…_ "

And the writer certainly does.

Before the war (and perhaps now, too, though she wouldn't know) her parents would regularly receive letters from all round the county asking for all manner of things—money, work, tenancy, an introduction. Papa would sometimes read the particularly polite and heartrending ones over breakfast. A reminder of their good fortune, and their responsibility.

To her recollection, he usually obliged the sender. Not with what they sought, necessarily, but with something. Because that was what you were meant to do, if you were an Earl or a Countess—use your station to provide, and to protect.

She has since decided that there are much better ways to do that than to dole out favours in little bits at a time.

This one doesn't ask for anything like that outright, but it does ask for a particular kind of assistance. A character, which may be the most difficult thing to give of all… And if it's been that long since she and Thomas have spoken...

Given the tone, Sybil is surprised to find no additional mention of herself nor her family by the time she gets to the signature:

 _"...Yours faithfully, Miss Phyllis Baxter_."

At some point during her reading, the bustling about in the cooking area had stopped, and now the quiet is strange.

The rain's stopped, too.

"I wouldn't have thought she knew the meaning of the word," Thomas says, too lightly.

"What word?" Sybil asks. She turns around in her chair just in time to see the spark as he lights the stove, the swirl of smoke from the extinguished match. The kettle goes down onto the burner with a _clunk._

He won't look at her.

"Faithfully."

* * *

The very same week, he serves as a character witness anyway. They were right to go through the post when they did.

When he returns that afternoon, Sybil greets him with, "she's asleep."

In her cradle, as she rocks it with her foot… she's got space here, but at this rate she'll be too big for the bassinet soon enough, and the cradle shortly after... The project of the day is removing tucks from her clothing. After hours of practice Sybil is _finally_ comfortable with the seam ripper. She's not nearly as good at it as Thomas, nor Rebecca, but it's something to do with her hands nevertheless.

"She got off," says Thomas from the entryway, curt but quiet. "No more parole."

"Oh, good."

"Walked her to her bedsit after and got shouted at—and I mean _shouted_ at—by the woman at the door just for being a man within a mile of the place, and then it looked like she'd get more of it just after I'd gone—may as well still be in prison, far as I saw." And he hangs up his coat, hat and jacket before making his way over to her, eyeing the dress in her lap with some amusement, and then to the baby. "Don't envy her, I can tell you."

"That's horrid," Sybil murmurs.

"Yeah, well."

"We should do something."

Blankly he looks up at her, stopped in place, his hand hovering over the rim of the cradle. "What could we possibly do?"

* * *

Phyllis Baxter is a slight, pale woman with a soft voice and trembling hands. She is dwarfed in her day dress (though it appears to be perfectly tailored—the current style just isn't flattering), her shoes are on their last legs but clearly well cared for, and her hair, styled very fashionably, just right for a woman of her age, is limp and graying.

In their sitting room she looks out of place not for any of those reasons but because she is also very sad.

Other people's misfortune never fails to remind her just how happy she really is. How happy a home the two of them have made, how happy a family. (A _very tired_ family, lately, but happy nonetheless.)

Thomas hadn't wanted her to come to the house at first, though it hadn't taken too much convincing in the end—well, Sybil had made him feel guilty about it, and he'd relented.

After they'd first opened the letter it wasn't much of a surprise to him, once he'd sat down and thought about it. Read between the lines. Sybil had asked if it was very in-character, theft grave enough as to warrant prison.

 _I don't know_ Miss Phyllis Baxter _well enough to say,_ Thomas had replied, though it was easy to see he had an opinion even so.

_She seems to know you._

_Yes, well, she doesn't, but_ _she was around when I was still in the womb, so she probably thinks she can get away with acting like it._

That early acquaintanceship became clear very quickly: she likes the baby, though she's hesitant around her. _She looks just like you did_ , she'd murmured over the cradle, and then Thomas had gone stiff and formal, making up some excuse she can't remember now to go upstairs…

Hurt feelings on both sides. Thomas's wounds are much older than this afternoon, and they have had plenty of time to fester.

Sybil hopes the same won't happen to those of this woman, who is, as far as she can tell, sincerely thankful, contrite and self-effacing. Sincerity wasn't something she was necessarily expecting.

Beggars can't be choosers.

There is more to her story than she is sharing, so Sybil invites her to return the next week, with the promise of luncheon.

In the meantime, she starts coming up with ideas.

* * *

"Surprised Dad gave her the time of day, with a story like that, let alone our bloody address," Thomas says later. He's been grumpy since he showed her to the door… It wasn't the best time for him, right after work. He's exhausted, and if the sudden pep in his voice is any indication, nervous, too.

And he struggles with social calls to begin with.

"…who'd ever've thought little Lissie Baxter'd end up behind bars."

"There's no need for that."

"Nobody back home but him would've been surprised, though, now I think about it, the Baxters didn't have much of a reputation to speak of… isn't she lucky Meg died before–"

"Whatever you're about to say," Sybil interrupts, "you're going to regret it."

Thomas scowls. "Well," he mutters, "here's how the other half lives, for you..."

...and Sybil sighs. "But you don't mind that I invited her back?"

"It's your house, too."

"Mine, _too_ , which means it's also _yours_ , you _can_ put your foot down sometimes, you know, I won't be offended."

"I'm your husband, not your father, have whomever you'd like over." He stands up from the sofa, then deposits Imogen back into the cradle, taking the time to drape the blankets over her just so. She's sleeping, which is convenient, though it would be even _more_ convenient if she were awake now and fast asleep at three o'clock in the morning, which she absolutely will not be. "It's no business of mine if they're convicts or not."

With the way he says so, one would think it bothers him very much… but he's changed his tune, if that's how he feels.

"Does that really bother you?"

"No," he scoffs. Just as she'd thought. "They don't like repeat offenders; I expect she's on her best behaviour from now til kingdom come."

But it isn't about _that_ at all…

It would have been nice of him to tell her about the apparently very many issues he has with this woman before they welcomed her into their home.

"...besides, what do we have worth stealing? Most things of yours, if she took them you'd probably thank her."

Her attempt at a straight face is short lived. "I can't argue with that."

Thomas raises his eyebrows.

"You did say _most_ ," Sybil points out.

"Yeah, well, the point is she wouldn't've lowered herself to grovel if she knew what we were."

And _there_ it is...

"Why did you help, then?"

The conversation is beginning to feel like an interrogation with him as the subject, but sometimes you really _do_ have to poke and prod… sometimes she can't ask outright about the things she most wants to know, not if she cares more about the answer than voicing the question.

"Nobody else was going to," he says simply. "Can't leave her to rot, can I, not when she asked so nicely."

"Other people would."

Other people _did_ —and it's unlikely that any of them are half as good at holding grudges as Thomas.

"I'm not _like_ other people." He says it like it's a bad thing, when really it's the best thing about him, the most important. "'S just I'm wondering why he didn't come up and do it himself, since he's so fond of her..."

It _is_ a good question, but the answer seems obvious: "she may not have asked."

"Exactly, 'cause she knows how he gets when he's not pleased with you… doesn't want to disappoint him, not after all this time," and now he's fishing through his pockets, so she'd suspected right, "not when she never did before—probably made up some story about wanting to send her regards for the baby and left it there, didn't want him to learn all he's got left in the world anymore for anything like children is two criminals who're–"

"You're not a criminal."

Thomas uses the interruption to light a cigarette, hand cupped around his mouth, eyes downcast. He pulls the backdoor open and sticks his foot in the gap to keep it ajar. "You think so?" he sneers. "I thought that was what you called people who did illegal things on the regular."

He's sulking in the back garden before she can say anything more.

* * *

The next visit goes better, and so does the one after it. She worries about giving the impression she's stringing her along, but they're just to get to know her, so she can decide what's best. She can't help somebody she hardly knows.

Usually, Thomas is working. He works a lot, because that's the sort of job he has and because they need the money.

Sybil is avoiding the thought of how hard it will be to find work again… But there are silver linings. A lot can change in a month, and a lot _has_ changed. The passage of time feels different now that Imogen is in the picture: as she grows there are milestones, and no day is uneventful with a baby around. She's constantly on her feet, figuratively if not literally, constantly guessing. She doesn't always know what to expect from anybody, including herself.

Some things help. They bring bottle-feeding into the mix, so she gets more sleep and Thomas gets less. And it's easier to tell what she wants than it used to be, sometimes if not always.

Despite it all, she likes motherhood. She likes what she signed up for. It's gratifying to know she'll be closer with her daughter than her mother was with her. Once she's healed up enough from the surgery to start going on walks and errands and the like again they even get a pram, which brings new adventures… she wouldn't have thought she'd have _more_ energy once she began moving again, but many days she does.

It gives her more time to think, too.

* * *

"Of course it isn't an excuse," Sybil tells her, clasping her hands in her own, "but I didn't ask for one, Miss Baxter, only a reason, so you mustn't feel down." She has already paid such a price for her actions; there is no need for her to punish herself, too. "And you're right it doesn't change anything, not materially," not where the rest of the world is concerned, Thomas might say, though she _does_ think people can be persuaded if they see enough of the truth, "but now I know why, and I'm grateful you've told me."

"But what does the reason matter?" Miss Baxter asks. "You seem to – my intentions were poor, Mrs Barrow," she always looks slightly in pain when she calls her that, but she couldn't manage plain _Sybil_ and Sybil can't stand _milady,_ "perhaps if I had been in great need of the money…"

If she were starving, or in need of medical treatment, or something.

"I was even pleased," Miss Baxter adds, with a short, self-deprecating laugh and a tense smile, so much like Thomas that she has to wonder who picked it up first and from where, if they owe it to the same people or the same places, "until I was caught."

Sybil isn't so sure about that, according to the woman's own words… or, not sure that it was really _stealing_ she was pleased about. "But you've said you would never have thought to do such a thing on your own," she says, "not before you knew him."

Miss Baxter shakes her head.

"But it made you happy?"

"I suppose… I was pleased I was capable of such a thing."

"Why?"

Miss Baxter blinks at her.

"Well, would you like to know what I think?"

No reply follows, only more of that mousy expression and unsteady hands, so Sybil starts, "I think," but then she has to pause, to really think about how to say it. "I think, people who are _treated_ poorly can _behave_ poorly, and-"

Miss Baxter interrupts her: "please forgive me," she says, too servile for her liking. She's been uncomfortable with contradicting Sybil since the very first day. "But I think you may have misunderstood– I hadn't been mistreated, not at all. Mrs Benton was a kind and generous employer, and I repaid her with ingratitude and…"

Sybil waits for her, but she only trails off.

"I didn't mean her," she says gently.

"Yes," Miss Baxter says. So she knows, then, what she means… she's sharper than she wants to be. Sybil has to wonder if she's heard it before, and if she's resisted it the whole time. She's not much older than her but she really seems it, now, with lines in her face and tired eyes, wistful and shameful and something more, all at once, wrapped up into one woman who doesn't have the strength to carry it all on her own yet has been forced to for the better part of three years, now. It's horrid. "But I must be held responsible for my own choices, Mrs Barrow—and I chose to follow the path trod by a man who was unkind to me, who asked things of me that would have sent any decent woman running."

And she chose to do them.

That much is true, but it's not what she intends to argue about.

"But did you?" Sybil presses. "Is that what you _felt_ you were choosing? —nobody likes to be told what to do or think or say, not deep down," she goes on, and Miss Baxter lets her, "we like to be our own people... We don't choose to be treated with unkindness, not really."

"Don't we?"

"No, I don't think so."

Miss Baxter nods.

There is more, Sybil supposes, in what they are not saying than what they are.

"He saw right through me," says Miss Baxter, sadly, though she looks as if she might smile, might laugh. Sometimes that's all you can do. "I thought it was because he understood…"

"So that's what you chose," Sybil says. "To be understood."

Anybody would choose that, if they'd never had it before. She has herself many times over. It's one of the most important things in the world, to be understood. Perhaps not the most important, but something vital all the same.

"Maybe," she submits, "but what does it matter, Mrs Barrow? When I let him change me?"

"Not for good."

But Sybil can tell Miss Baxter doesn't believe that, necessarily. She says only, "for long enough to do very great damage."

"He took advantage of you."

She _told_ herself she wouldn't argue, but...

"Is it truly taking advantage, when I willingly gave him so much power over me?"

"You never had the chance to take it back," Sybil tells her. "It doesn't matter if you wanted him to have it in the first place—what's important is that he doesn't have it anymore, Miss Baxter." She squeezes her fingers. "You're free now."

And the poor woman bursts into tears.

* * *

"I haven't had one for a very long time," Sybil tells her, "but I do know _how_ to have one, and I know how to write a reference… the only problem with _that_ is, we couldn't pay you what you deserve, not on top of room and board."

"I don't expect to be worth the market rate," Miss Baxter says, a sad smile at her lips. Sybil squeezes her hand. She's just about to disagree when...

"What's this I hear about paying people?"

They both turn.

"Miss Baxter wants to be a lady's maid again," Sybil explains.

Thomas cocks his head at her. "You could be anything," he says flatly, "and you want to be a lady's maid."

She has to be something before she can be something else, though; that is the unfortunate way these things work… and if it's what she wants, why should she be kept from it?

"We'll try it out," Sybil says, with as much resolution as she can manage, which hasn't been very much, lately.

Thomas isn't so sure. "You won't make it a week."

"Thomas, don't be unkind–"

"Not her, Sybil, you." A long-suffering sort of sigh follows. Sybil bites her tongue. "Look, if you want some place better to stay, and mind you I wouldn't blame you, we've got room. Long as you don't mind waking up five times in the middle of the night to a crying baby and helping out a bit, assuming you're not paying rent. But nobody in this house is a servant and I don't intend for that to change now."

He's surprisingly stern, his voice resolute, but one look at his hands tells her he's not as confident as he's trying to seem.

"See?" he adds, looking at Sybil sideways, "I can put my foot down, when I like."

"I can pay rent," says Miss Baxter quickly.

"Can you!" Thomas remarks, and she looks down at her hands in her lap, pressing her lips together. "Didn't look like it."

"Are you trying to be helpful or cruel?" counters Sybil.

"Not trying to be either of those things, just telling it like it is."

Helpful, then.

"See, it all comes down to what _you_ want, Liss," he goes on, "'cause there are a couple of things you might like to know before you decide to stick around."

Somehow, Sybil hadn't completely factored that into the equation.

* * *

"...and you're all right with children, aren't you, 'less that's changed in the last thirty years."

She nods.

"There we have it, then," Thomas says, "we're taking on a boarder—we're not too far from where you've been working, are we?"

Though it had seemed as if she wouldn't be keeping her place for much longer…

"No," says Miss Baxter, "I don't think so, and I'm very grateful, but I'm afraid it doesn't solve the problem of..."

Precisely.

"Yes," Sybil says, turning to him, "what do I do when she needs a reference?"

He squints at her. "Lie?"

As though it's the most obvious thing in the world…

In retrospect it _was_ a very silly idea, and she feels foolish for having come up with it at all… it wouldn't have worked, she can understand that, and it wouldn't have been _right,_ either.

"You people," Thomas mutters, when neither of them have anything to say to that. "It'll work out, you'll see, just have to get you out of that bloody rat trap first… nobody'll look at _Lady_ Somebody having a _lady's_ maid and think there's any funny business, and that's how most people think of you anyway, isn't it? ...that's if she doesn't come to her senses and choose some other vocation once she's back on her feet."

"She _can_ hear you-"

"Good for her," he replies.

"We needn't discuss this as though you weren't in the room—what do _you_ think, Miss Baxter?"

She is going to have to talk to him about this later, once they _are_ alone, but for now…

To her credit, Miss Baxter does not shrink under what Sybil always realises much too late are two very, very expectant stares.

* * *

Eventually they manage to work something out. After Miss Baxter goes, Thomas closes the door after her, shuts it, locks it.

Before she can even remember what she'd wanted to say—there had been something, though whether it was something he would have much liked to hear is another story—he turns to Sybil with a suddenly smug look on his face, one eyebrow raised higher than the other, grinning (though he wouldn't like it to be called that).

He says, "your parents would be _furious_."

**Author's Note:**

> [on tumblr as @combeferre](https://combeferre.tumblr.com)


End file.
